Irony
by Aerieada
Summary: Some stories are better left untold. Some jokes are better left unexplained. And some bitter ironies are far better left unknown. How did Jack Starbright really die? One-shot.


"_We played a joke on him. He didn't like it." _

A joke. A joke was an untruth that was believed as a truth. Gunter glanced uneasily back at the empty shell in the back of the van as Julius skipped gleefully away. The figure was wrinkled, like a discarded piece of cloth. It was hard to associate him with anything alive. He looked as if he was held by a thin string from the ceiling, as if his existence was not of his own will but some higher power's, some entity which could cut the string at any time, letting the boy – if this was a boy – fade into nothingness.

A joke. For a moment Gunter nearly wished he had the truth to tell, if only to bring some wisp of humanity into the broken sarcophagus.

Alan Blunt was not a sentimental creature, and his small box of personal belongings was really a collection of things that did not technically belong to Ms. Jones or MI6. But one sheet of paper stood distinct – not in form, but in purpose.  
>A letter. One that had never been sent. In this case Blunt had, perhaps, given way to a slight form of compassion, actually favoring it over what was required by the assuming and impersonal protocol.<p>

A lone shard of broken metal glints in the desert sun, nearly consumed by the golden waves, but threatening to pierce any unwary and yielding passerby. Three meters away, a shred of something soft and synthetic flutters almost hidden, quite the opposite of its brittle companion, and distinctly separate in function, although they had once been together in the same machine, part of the same coordinated mechanisms. One was meant to destroy, to burn, to cause pain. The other was hidden, discreet, and preserved life – though life may not appreciate the gesture.

And they were forgotten, here, now. The only thing carried away from that desolate area, so many full moons ago, was a single body. She was shattered in all ways, but nearly dead in mind. She was brought to a secure facility, where she was brought to a sterile, secret facility, and was mended and kept alive – but just that. She was in a drug-induced coma, and, according to the many sensors connected to her, her dreams were few and far between. Some were intense, and some were tranquil glimpses, hopeful imaginings. All proved her to be living and thinking, and capable of functioning if she were not trapped by others, just as the others were trapped by desire and greed.

Still, she was alive. She was held and fed by tubes and needles, and her every aspect – her very living existence was controlled. She was held in unwitting anticipation of a visitor who would never come, who would be overjoyed to see her and whom she would be overjoyed to see.

One night, however, her dose of drugs was not given. This was due mainly to the fact that her supervisor was called out to defend the fort against a surprise enemy attack. And so Jack woke somewhat, semi-conscious. "Alex," she muttered. It was a remnant from her dream, the boy for whom she had given up so much. She had no way of knowing that this very boy – if indeed he could be called a boy – was not two rooms away. The boy, in turn, had no way of knowing that the system he was battling so fiercely to shut down was the only thing keeping the woman alive. Cruel irony it is, that the death of the red-haired female would come to pass through his own actions. That her supposed murder would motivate him to become her killer.

Cruel irony it was indeed, when the fort grew suddenly quiet, the various deadly traps and weapons disabled. The boy exalted; and three walls away the life-giving mechanisms by Jack Starbright's bed of imprisonment dimmed, just as her own life seeped away. The beep of a certain monitor grew fainter and fainter as the red line drawn on its screen grew straighter and straighter, until finally – the screen faded to black, the sound stopped silent. Their energy supply was discontinued, and they had no choice but to yield and die. The woman's life was draining from her in synchronization with the death of its source. For a moment she thought she could sense Alex's voice, his presence, but for once she disregarded that and thought instead how her life had been no longer her own but that of another, a person whose own life was controlled by others. Irony.

And it was the same indefinable force at work when Alan Blunt folded the letter and placed it into the box. It was not out of professional secrecy that he kept Alex Rider in the dark this time. Blunt did not wish for his own career in espionage to end with the devastation of a youth. Never did it cross his conscious mind the thought that lurked in the shadows – that if he had such a sentiment one year before, another person's career in espionage would not have begun with a similar devastation.

_Cold nights of loneliness__  
><em>_Dark nights of emptiness__  
><em>_I stood there waiting__  
><em>_But the summer came too late___

_Seasons unfold__  
><em>_Stories lie untold__  
><em>_And still my heart is waiting__  
><em>_Summer came too late_

Hayley Westenra, "Melancholy Interlude"


End file.
